A Splinter in the Sound Series
by infamouslastwords
Summary: Dallas/Two-Bit slash. A three-part series focused around the concept of sound and the lack thereof.
1. Keep Talking

**A Splinter in the Sound Series  
by **infamous_last_**words**

**Part One | Keep Talking**

"Shit, Dal. Wouldn't think you'd get this worked up over a broad who's cheated on ya before."

Two-Bit observes a severe-looking Dallas next to him at the bar, hiccupping quietly. The towhead mutters something about Shepard, frown a slash across thin lips.

"Aww, don' worry 'bout her, bud…" Two-Bit puts a strong palm on the other's shoulder, slow to react to a raising hand ready to strike. Murderous eyes turn to slits, daring.

"Fuck you, Mathews. I'm not mad at the bitch." Dallas lowers his fist, huffing, and then downs the rest of a beer bottle. He turns away, looking into the dimly-lit room behind their backs. "That bastard Shepard is pullin' this shit on purpose. I know it." He turns severely back to Two-Bit. "You know this is the third of mine he's fucked? I'm gonna kill him tonight, I swear I will." He reaches over and steals Two-Bit's amber bottle, finishing it. He wipes his mouth on his jacket sleeve. "Show that motherfucker what a NY boy can do. You don't fuck with me and get the fuck away with it."

Two-Bit cocks his eyebrow, small grin chasing his amusement away with a look of mock confusion as Dallas's eyes meet his.

"Aw, hell, Dal. I think I heard that story wrong, then."

Dallas's eyes turn angry, asking a very vehement "What the fuck are you talkin' about?"

"I thought it was Sylvia who he fucked with, not you." He turns to the one or two patrons left inside the bar, trying to hide his smile. Just as the jukebox changes track, he elevates his voice. "Didn't know you were into queery stuff like that, bud…"

Dallas vaults over the space separating them. Two-Bit feels himself slip from the surface of the barstool, back colliding with the floor and hips knocking into Dallas's. The other's pale hands come around his neck, gripping his collar tight. His head rises off of the sticky floor of the bar.

He cocks an eyebrow at the other's red-faced appearance.

"Gonna kiss me, lover boy?"

Dallas' fist is against his face faster than he can breathe. The seventeen-year old grows taller, on his knees, holding Two-Bit's collar as fists collide with the other's skin. He's pushed away by an especially hard one to his ribs, using the staggering moment to stand up and bring his knuckles right into Dallas's stomach. The towhead keels over, gasping for breath before he pulls that white-blond hair back and lands a hook to his cheek. The fighting mechanism in his brain flips on, pushing adrenaline through his veins in a protective advance with the wrong intentions. Dallas quickly recovers, and jumps on Two-Bit like a wild animal, sharp little teeth barred. They scrabble, continuing in to the hard corners of chairs, pushing each other over the bar counter. Glass breaks somewhere, and shouts begin. They are littered with growing bruises and smarts before the manager and bartender manage to pull them apart.

"HEY!" the manager bellows, a squat little man with rose cheeks. He holds Two-Bit back like an unstoppable boar, preventing his jumps at the equally violent Dallas, who is barely being contained by the beanpole bartender. "Settle the fuck down before I kick your asses outta here!"

They continue to stare with hard eyes at each other as murderous rage falls into a strong dislike. The bartender jumps as Dallas puffs out his jacket violently, fixing the creases in his clothing. Two-Bit looks grudgingly on as he sets back up the seats they had knocked over and sits down again. He had felt something during that fight, convinced himself it wasn't true. Why had he fought? He never fights with friends like that. The only reason could be this disappointment in his stomach, a dropping that happened when Dallas punched him, tackled him. He had asked, half-thinking that from the raw look in the other's eyes it was going to happen. He gratefully accepted the beer given to him by the shaken tender, flipping the cap off and drinking half of it as Dallas sat down. He had wanted it. He had wanted it?

"Fuck, Mathews." He looks over warily at the other, noticing a red welt on Dallas's cheek. "You've got a nice right hook."

His beer is stolen, sweating surface placed to the cheek. He hears a sigh or hiss escape thin lips. Shaking with a shiver, he tries to let go of this feeling in his stomach.

"Yeah, sorry."

They sit in a silence for many moments, waiting as the jukebox dwindles on from song to song, as patrons leave one by one. Eventually the manager joins them again, standing behind the counter as he encourages the shaking bartender to say something.

"Uh, it's c-closing time."

Dallas retires challenging, bored eyes on the skinny man's face.

"I'm not ready to go, yet. Fuck off."

Two-Bit cringes at idea of being thrown out by the beast-like manager, of adding bruises to those already given by Dallas. He stands up slowly.

"C'mon, Dal. We should be going anyway."

The towhead turns to him, obviously tipsy. "Fuck you, Mathews. I said I ain't ready to leave yet!"

Two-Bit cocks an eyebrow again, putting his hands out to stop the manager's growing temper. He reaches into his pocket for the dollar bill of change he had received, rubbing it gently between his fingers at Dallas as he back his way to the door.

"Here, horsie horsie horsie…"

Dallas doesn't register what is going on a first, but Two-Bit can tell when that veil parts.

"Nice horsie…"

He rushes from the door, chased by Dallas. The anger of the other has been renewed again as if it were on a reserve, ready to be tapped into at any time. He sprints into an adjacent alley in the moonlight, cool air misting his cheeks and waking his alcohol-dulled senses.

"Mathews, fucking get back here!!" Dallas growls, not that far behind him. He reaches a bend in the alley only to find it a dead end. Of course. He turns, breathing in sharply the fresh air, the night colors, just in time to be knocked to the ground by one stellar punch from Dallas.

Blindly, he's picked off of the stone ground, slammed into the wall; they stare, panting heavily. Two-Bit flashes back to the bar scene, feeling every inch of Dallas compressed to his gutter water- and dirt-soaked body. The feeling in his stomach wakes.

His voice is soft, eyelids lowering; "Wanna kiss me?"

Dallas gazes at him, their eye level matching. Something stirs in ice water irises, dilating pupils in the darkness. Those eyes rip away from his, staring down either end of the alley. He hesitantly looks back, matches Two-Bit again. In a flurry of hands moving from collar to jaws, lips from 'not on' to 'on' another pair, Two-Bit feels his body collide roughly with the wall. He matches the coarse, needy gesture readily, grabbing Dallas's collar to pull them together tighter. When he laves, Dallas licks harder. When he nips, Dallas bites stronger. When he pushes their hips together, Dallas bucks more steadily, ensuring this game of who wins who.

Eventually, they part for breath. Two-Bit can feel Dallas's hands shaking against his jaw, so he releases his iron-fisted grasp on the other's collar.

"Woah, cowboy…" he murmurs, trying to impose a regular breathing rate onto his partner. "Woah…"

Dallas's ice eyes glint to his momentarily and then flash away as the towhead's nose nuzzles into his cheek, exactly like a horse trying to scratch its muzzle. The sincere movement ends abruptly, Dallas turning and taking a few drunken steps away, looking back down the alley to see who had witnessed the act. Two-Bit doesn't look, though he knows no one had. Instead, he reaches out and grasps Dallas's sleeve, yanking him back. They land face to face against the wall once again.

"Who said we were done?"

Two-Bit eclipses Dallas's body with his own, pinning the towhead to the wall. His palms scrape against the rough red brick, face turning curiously to the others.

Dallas stares at him with a scowl, daring with slitted eyes.

"Now, the only question is who's goin' to take a knee, y'know."

Dallas shoots him a glance, staring warily down the alley once more. "I'm not doin' this here, Mathews. Fuck that."

Two-Bit presses his body tightly to the others, forceful against a slim thigh.

"The problem isn't goin' to take care of itself." His voice is low, murmurings threatening or soft; he can't decide. Maybe it's both. Maybe it's neither. Maybe it's the way Dallas is breathing hard against him, like the seventeen-year-old wants it, needs it. Or how hardened eyes are finally showing a human flaw—they are afraid. Afraid of being caught, afraid of getting so close…again, Two-Bit doesn't know. He only knows what he wants, how he won't stop until he's satisfied. He takes comfort in the fact Dallas is the same way, unwilling to admit defeat until the job is finished.

"Come on…" he growls. "I _need_ it, Dallas… _You_ need it…"

Slowly, Dallas lets his knees bend. His back slides down the brick wall, clothing bunching to reveal a pale slat of stomach to chilly night air. Knees in gutter water, Dallas finally stops and looks up.

"At least fucking turn the right way, yeah?"

Two-Bit grins at the irritated tone of voice. He twirls his fingers into un-greased hair, letting the soft strings run over his skin. "Show me how, baby."

Growling, Dallas takes Two-Bit's hips in bruising grip, pushing him into the wall.

"Done this before?" Two-Bit asks from above, voice holding a laugh in. "I was lookin' forward to a virgin, turns me on for some—"

"Do you want me to suck you off or not?"

Two-Bit chuckles at the restraint in Dallas's voice, knowing how much fear is below it. He can feel the shaking hands, the darting eyes. It makes something inside him burn, hotly.

"Yes, sir. That's the plan."

Indignant, Dallas tries to steady the hands connecting him to Two-Bit. He slams the other into the wall again, dragging fingernails over the waistband of jeans as he tries to pull them down.

"Then shut—" He unzips them quickly, the metal clasping on fire from friction. "The fuck—" Two-Bit hears a rip as they come from his hips, freeing an angry red prick from its denim encasement. "Up."

"Fuck…" he moans, unable to look away as a smart mouth takes him in, sucking lightly. Dallas shoves controlling hands away from his head, returning back with new vigor to the organ in front of his eyes. He deep-throats it once, stopping for a second to regain composure before trying again. The sporadicness of the towhead's movements makes Two-Bit groan, want more than he should, and feel teased. It is teasing, not knowing, sometimes—he wants Dallas more, he knows more than possible. Even if it was just as this, on his knees; at least it was something, right?

Dallas licks him from hilt to tip, running a wet tongue over contours and veins. Teeth are covered by lips, which tug and tug and tug, making Two-Bit want to crawl up the wall with anticipation. He can feel the tickling in the pit of his stomach begin, the hint that he would be hitting things off just fine soon, very soon…

Dallas suddenly lets the organ fall from his mouth, standing up as he undoes his own belt buckle.

Disappointed, Two-Bit asks with strain, "You're stopping?"

Dallas's pale hand shoots out to clasp around his wrist, guiding it to a bulge in the front of now-tight jeans. He steps closer, old eye's fearfulness being bit away at by libido. He sees it chomping away, melting ice in the iris with a raw fire. He lets his fingers cup the hotness in Dallas's crotch, gently mulling it over.

"Fuck me now, Mathews," Dallas breathes. "Before I change my fuckin' mind, just do me."

Two-Bit grins widely, amused at how close Dallas is to him. He's stared at with irritated, urgent eyes.

"Alright?!"

He lets his back fall against the wall. "Yeah, alright." His hand moves from Dallas's groin, sliding its way underneath a white undershirt, firm stomach. "A bit excited, huh?"

Dallas grabs him, turns so he's the one pinned to the wall. Roughly he pushes their lips together, fighting to be faster, harder, stronger than the other. Past that is an element of persuasion, an argument. He's trying to convince the easily swayed Two-Bit, who just laughs quietly as they separate.

"I said, fuck me now."

Two-Bit pushes their lips together again after a smoldering look, hoisting the seventeen-year-old up to the wall. Jeans are pushed from legs; legs are wrapped around a strong waist. Dallas's clothes bunch up again, brick scratching spine. Their mouths are hot together, teeth pressing so hard they are felt even through lips. With a spit-slicked prick, Two-Bit positions himself and slides in.

Dallas groans into his mouth, separating them. "Fuck…" he hisses, eyes shut in pain. The towhead's face is turned down, shied away from Two-Bit's gaze.

"Funny…" He nuzzles into Dallas's neck, inching in a bit further. "New York must not be all the shit you've cooked it up to be if you're moaning like a girl cause'a this, Dal."

Dallas hooks his mouth downward, biting fiercely Two-Bit's neck. The eighteen-year-old yelps in pain.

"Fuck you too, Dracula! Fuck's sake…!"

He rubs the spot, balancing Dallas against the wall with one hand and his body shoved up against the others. Dallas nibbles his earlobe gently, then kisses his cheek wetly. The towhead leans back against the wall, stretching a slim torso alluringly with a smirk to match. The movement makes Two-Bit swell with arousal.

"_Move_, Mathews," Dallas commands lazily, eyes half-lidded. "_Do_ something."

Two-Bit pushes Dallas's shirt up under armpits, biting at the other's chest as he slowly draws in and out, moving his hips in a way that makes Dallas moan on the second try. It's a guilty sound, the thought of revealing himself like this too much. Two-Bit continues up to the towhead's neck, ear.

"Goddamn, you're tight."

It's insane how easily Two-Bit can keep Dallas up to the wall, and as he runs his fingers over stretch-skin ribs, he thrusts up again. Dallas's neck is bared, head tilted back against the wall in pain or gratification, Two-Bit doesn't know. Friction is making him dizzy, the waves of consciousness that hit him so strong he has to grab Dallas's shoulders tightly to stay grounded. He traces his teeth over the other's throat possessively, pushing shoulders back against brick as he moves up and down. Large scratches are made on his back, under his shirt, by Dallas's short fingernails. He takes them and holds them against the wall where they reside in fists, terse moaning shown in how white the knuckles are. He's sure all the jostling is scraping Dallas's back against the bricks behind him, but the towhead doesn't even squeak in pain. Not after the beginning.

"You close?"

Dallas's head rolls across the brick, and he moans softly. "Yea…"

Two-Bit pushes up, making sure to angle his hips to the rhythm Dallas reacts the most to. The underside of Dallas's thighs are slick around his waist, slipping slightly as they maneuver deeper, moaning together.

"Let my hands go, Mathews…please…"

He does so, and Dallas collapses around his shoulders, meeting his lips with a kiss as he tries to balance them together again. This one is gentle, lazy swirls of tongue distracting him from what he's supposed to be doing. Something grows in his stomach, the familiar tickling feeling accompanied by something else not so familiar… What is it? Dallas sucks his bottom lip, holding his face and body close, and he can't dare begin to admit it. Just like the before questions, why? How? Why now?

"I didn't wan' ya to stop…"

Their lips separate, and Two-Bit re-oxygenates his deprived, spinning head. "Oh…" He doesn't noticed he had stopped movement until Dallas leans into the crook of his neck, moaning deeply when he begins again.

This friction is undeniable. He feels the tugging begin again, and Dallas's heaving breaths tell him the other is on edge also. There is a blur of words; "Faster", "Slower", "Wait", "Don't wait", "Stop", "Right there…" until they all meet at the top in one spiral of coming coming going going gone.

Silence is after. They drag their clothes back on, clean up, and separate in a backwards order. Two-Bit can't think straight—he's not used to this. The alleyway now looks green in the moonlight, something so strange to have experienced what he just experienced in it. Sure, this is normal. No, it wasn't. He doesn't feel normal. It wasn't normal. Dallas pushes him slightly with his shoulder, eyes averted aloofly, as they walk back down the alleyway slowly. Two-Bit trails a step back from Dallas's strides, waiting until they are under the light of streetlamps until he speaks to alleviate the pain silence brings to his chest.

"You're blushin', Dal."

The towhead doesn't look back, just keeps walking with hands in jeans pockets.

"Am not."

Two-Bit catches up to him, walking in the same nonchalant strides.

"Aw, you're embarrassed! A drunk all embarrassed 'bout getting' fucked by me, aww—"

Dallas turns and punches his shoulder, seeming to tower over him with a strong glare. They stop walking.

"Shut up," he warns lowly.

Two-Bit shrugs it off, returning a quick grin to his face, a quick skip in his step.

"Dal, you ain't gotta be worried; you're such a doll, people'll be beggin' you to pull down your pants once word gets out you're a—"

Dallas swoops in on him again, cornering him against a wall. Ice eyes catch light in the darkness, and give them a murderous, purely hateful glint. What didn't bother Two-Bit before, now does.

"I said shut your mouth, Mathews!"

They stare at each other, Two-Bit waiting until the exact moment Dallas steps away to speak up.

"I can't."

He gets a look, is swept down upon again. "What?"

"I can't stop. If I stop runnin' my mouth then I'll actually think about what we just did, Dal."

The other's shell of anger falls away at this, a look of knowing passing over a face that can be captured on paper in just a few lines. "Oh."

Two-Bit kicks his toe into the ground, looking up at Dallas. "Yeah. 'Oh'."

Dallas comes from him, and they start walking again. The street starts to decline—the hill to the bottom will lead them home, wherever it is this night. The moon hangs above their path, centered in the sky like a giant white dot against black cloth.

"Then… keep talkin', Mathews."

* * *

**A/N:** This was written by request for OliverScye (/u/1706901/), who also came up with the plot.

* * *


	2. Nothing But Silent

**A Splinter in the Sound Series  
by **infamous_last_**words**

**Part Two | Nothing But Silent**

Two-Bit stares at himself, image reflected in the grimy mirror above the only sink that isn't busted or holding stagnant water at the Dingo. Dark circles surround his eyes, skin stretched over his cheekbones like a too-tight canvas, frame threatening to snap under the pressure. There is a full ache between his temples that had stayed with him all day—a burning in his stomach from not eating anything. He thinks if he smelled or saw the wrong thing he's be dry-heaving. His face shadowed over by the bare bulbs in the bathroom almost does it.

He looks away, wiping his hands on his pants. Less than twelve hours ago he'd woken up with a strange smell on him, a strange knowing. He had walked through the day feeling like there was some kind of 'kick-me' sign on his back, guilt toward everyone he'd talked to like they knew what he had done. There was no questioning the whole thing's on his hands—ranking on Sylvia and Shepard, then the fight, then the alley. Two-Bit jolts internally, stomach juices sloshing around. Not even the shower he had taken made him feel clean. He doesn't think he'll feel clean for a long time, not with these lingering thoughts hanging around and replaying.

Washing his hands for the fourth time in ten minutes, Two-Bit focuses on clearing his mind. He breathes, heavy and deep, the stale air of the tiny two-stall, two-urinal bathroom. It wasn't quite the time of day for drunks to be in there praying to a porcelain god, but late enough for people like himself, people who had things on their minds, to be successfully drowned in drink. Not that it even helped—it only made him think more, imagine more, find parts of himself that a sober mind would stay the hell away from. He was four times out of five an ecstatic drunk, a further projection of himself, but the coin had been tossed and this one time, this twenty percent chance, left him not in the mood to talk or even look at anyone. Especially himself.

Drying his hands with a piece of toilet paper, Two-Bit looks up as the door is opened inwardly, creaking, another stepping into the room with him. Soles of shoes scuff, echoing off of tiles. Two-Bit feels a swell of fate in his stomach, like a balloon expanding. It hurts.

When the other sees him shoulders raise, a spine stiffens—everything awkward and protected and nightmarishly surprised.

"You look like hell, Mathews."

Pale eyes regard him with an inch of disgust, slim fingers sliding off the dingy door. The other seems pale, tinged yellow in the light, everything about him—skin, white-blond hair, sharp animal teeth, ice eyes. He stays by the door, directly under one of the few bare bulbs, body held as if expecting something. Two-Bit looks away, then toward the mirror, then directly at the sink. He holds the toilet paper in his fist, damp with water, feeling dumb for the umpteenth time that day.

"What's new, Dal?" he asks rhetorically, sarcastically, quietly. Dallas's eyes turn into slits, palms low on hips, forefingers in front pockets and ring fingers in back pockets.

"What the fuck d'you think's new?"

Two-Bit would have left by now, as soon as the other came in, but Dallas is standing by the door, guarding it with this bristled air. He doesn't want to go within arm's length of the guy. So he walks to the trashcan, throws the toilet paper away, leans against the edge of the sink.

"Though you said you'd never step foot in the Dingo after the manager almost killed us for fightin'."

Dallas sneers like he knows something Two-Bit doesn't.

"I say a lot'a things."

Somewhere in his stomach, Two-Bit knows Dallas was looking for him. There's a pang, a blanket of cold slowly covering his insides like how snow covers front lawns. They wait in silence, Two-Bit getting colder and Dallas looking meaner.

Finally, Two-Bit lets out a sigh.

"Dal… What d'you want?"

Hands come from hips, crossing over a chest. The other is only wearing a plain t-shirt, jeans. Two-Bit has his coat on, because he had been planning to leave since two hours and five beers ago.

"I wanna ask you where you get off, getting' me drunk like you did."

A knife of pain digs right between Two-Bit's temples. He closes his eyes for longer than a blink, opens them.

"We're not doin' this now, Dal. Not here."

Dallas takes a step forward—Now, Two-Bit knows Dallas' walk is strange because he jockeys, but this is a different kind of strange. It makes Two-Bit cringe.

"Like hell we ain't doin' this now." The towhead reaches for his back pocket, but Two-Bit can't move. "I plan on showin' you exactly where the fuck you can get off, doin' what you did to me."

"We were real drunk, alright? We shouldn't even be rememberin' anythin'."

Dallas takes another steps toward him, another, points to his chest.

"I was real drunk, Mathews. I remember." Anger flares hot in icy eyes. "You were fuckin' fine."

Two-Bit doesn't know what to do, so he washes his hands again. Turns his back to Dallas, who watches him in the grimy mirror, and wets his hands. He flicks them in the sink, walks back over to a stall to grab toilet paper, throws it on the ground.

"I ain't fuckin' fine now."

Dallas cusses at him, real good. He feels all kinds of nasty, unclean, angry, stoic. He feels ripped into shreds.

"Not bein' fine ain't good enough."

Suddenly Dallas lunges at him, fist barely missing his cheek, eye. It lands on the stall door, knuckles cracking. Two-Bit wonders why he hadn't brought out the switch, moving to the side, but Dallas throws another punch and this one is slowed out of pain, easily deflected.

"Dal—Dal—"

Something about the towhead being so close makes him angry, boiling hot blood going straight to his brain. He grits his teeth, trying to stop it, but something in him snaps. He thinks of murderers, momentarily, when he grabs Dallas's arm and bends it behind the seventeen-years-old's back, pinning his body to the inside wall of a stall—is this what people who kill people feel like, right before they do it?

"Fuck you, Mathews," Dallas spits, voice straight into the stall wall as the door snaps shut and locks. The sound of his cheek connecting was a sickening smack, skin slapped to man made material. Two-Bit twists the arm he's holding, making Dallas' knees buckle, muttering, "Shut up—" as he reaches in front of struggling hips, flicks open a belt buckle and yanks jeans to the filthy floor. As he did this his fingers brushed against Dallas' crotch, erection straining. Someone was lying.

He pushes Dallas further into the wall as the other shakes, as he pulls his own cock out of his jeans.

"What the fuck're you—"

He bites Dallas' neck through his t-shirt as he thrusts in without warning. Dallas cries out, a high-pitched roar, fists clenching so hard they turn white. Two-Bit groans, eyes closing as he swallows dryly, drawing in and out in quick succession. His free hand on Dallas' bare hip guides movements, fingertips digging into skin. The towhead lets out a string of expletives—"Fuckin' cocksucking bastard"—but moans as if he were granted salvation at the feet of holy Mother Mary herself.

Two-Bit twists his hips, digging deep, and feels Dallas clench around him. He slides his hand over the other's cock, chest tight, pushing his face between Dallas' shoulder blades. Dallas responds with a low moan, thrusting into Two-Bit's hand. He feels a trickle of sweat run down his spine—he's still wearing his leather jacket.

"You're gonna break my fuckin' arm," Dallas says, voice husky. "Lemme go."

Hesitantly Two-Bit does, the arm uncurling and returning to guide Two-Bit's hand more readily over a pre-cum slicked cock. He hears their heavy breathing reverberate around the shadowed stall, hears his own groan as Dallas twists in the right way.

Quickly, Two-Bit turns Dallas around and lifts him into the corner of the stall, entering again without skipping a beat. Dallas' shaking hands push off his jacket, letting it fall to the ground. They snake up to hook over the tops of the stall walls, so with each movement the whole structure shakes.

Two-Bit's hands return to steady slim, pale hips as legs to match wrap around his waist. Dallas does the same thing with his torso, stretching it in a way that makes Two-Bit insane. He stares as Dallas's head rolls back, throat bared, pale lips parted, chest moving rapidly, shallowly. He can't stop staring, even when the other's molten eyes open and focus on him. Even as the other twists, moans while holding eye contact.

"What…? Why're you lookin' at me like that…?"

Without thinking Two-Bit leans forward, hurriedly connecting their mouths, teeth knocking. Lips bruise, hot and callous. Dallas pulls away only to come back harder after a heavy glance, stronger, lips defter and tongue more forceful. The back of Two-Bit's skull is cradled, one arm supporting Dallas' weight. A moan transfers between their lips, a sound of pain. Their kiss is broken with a wince, Dallas tucking his head into Two-Bit's neck, crying out again. Two-Bit knows it's because this hurts—twice in the same twenty-four hours? Like having your insides blended with an electric whisk. Two-Bit can imagine what that feels like.

"Dal…"

Two-Bit feels the heavy familiarity of Dallas' lips on his, shushing him, hips twisting, bumping, haphazard. He knows the sounds the other makes, the way he looks; from the tilt of a smirk to ice eyes melting by libido, friction. But even now as he stares at closed eyes, a bitten lip… It shocks him into alienation.

He sucks on the other's neck, distracting, as he moves their position and sets Dallas on top of the toilet's water tank. He braces himself against that back wall with his right hand, left supporting the weight either one of Dallas' arms doesn't, locked against either stall wall. As he unhooks his mouth, leaving a red mark against pale skin, he sees the sinews in slim arms, straining, desperate. Two-Bit feels desperate as Dallas' hips flick, turning his legs to jello. White bites at the corners of his vision, Dallas' weight on his hips as arms wrap around his neck, a mouth kisses his own rough, with purpose. He sinks into it, knows Dallas is on edge by how much noise he makes, the way he squirms. There's pressure, so much pressure trapped in his body that when he climaxes, he can only think of a balloon being stuck by a pin.

Dallas is nibbling his ear when he pulls out, a sated smirk in the way the other slips from the water tank, runs fingers down Two-Bit's arms. He leans against the stall wall, and Dallas leans against him. A damp heat is shared between them—chests heaving and bodies shaking.

"Where's your two-bits, Mathews?"

Two-Bit lays his head back. Distractions, jokes, teasing—he can't talk forever. Sooner rather than later he's going to run outta breath. He's gonna run outta things to say to make them forget.

Wishing he had a weed, Two-Bit replies, "I ain't got none."

Dallas looks at him, eyes sharp and dangerous again. He cusses, bitingly cold, and then bends to pull his jeans back on. The towhead swings open the stall door, violent, as Two-Bit hurriedly gets dressed. There is a mild resignation in his arms, chest. He sees Dallas re-buckling his belt, still cussing, when a man walks into the restroom.

"Dal—"

The guy is stared at for a second, and without even blinking Dallas pulls his switch from his back pocket, flips it out. Two-Bit can only watch.

"Y'ever wonder what it's like to have a four-inch piece'a metal stickin' in your skull?"

The guy splits just as Dallas throws the blade. It lands in the drywall next to a swinging door, right where a head used to be. Two-Bit shrugs on his jacket and steps out of the stall, fixing his belt and staring at Dallas. The other kicks the ground, hissing and running a hand through his hair. Two-Bit's eyes are met, Dallas rushing him against the panel of stall separating the two doors. Their teeth knock together, angry and fighting and angry and kissing. Abruptly, they stop.

Two-Bit can feel whatever it is battling out inside Dallas' head, that look like maybe he'd be jumped on again, that look that maybe things weren't ever going to be enough. Eyes slitted, snake-thin, before they tear away from his and spit hits the tile floor.

Two-Bit reaches his hand out, trying to reconcile things, trying to hold on to that last thread of figuring things out. If he holds on, he can figure this out. If he holds on, this will makes sense; for both of them. He's offering Dallas the chance just as much as he's holding on to it himself.

But Dallas steps backward, shoulder leaning away from him. His fingers don't even graze the material of the other's shirt.

"Don't be a faggot."

Steely resolve eats away at Two-Bit's thoughts. Dallas obviously made up his mind.

Two-Bit's knuckles crack as they collide with Dallas' cheek, sending a vein of pain crawling into his wrist, forearm. Dallas hits the floor, sprawling, as he shakes his hand into the air.

Two-Bit spits. He can't taste anything, anymore.

"I liked you better fuckin' drunk."

Dallas raises himself off of the ground, rubbing his cheek sorely, as Two-Bit brushes past him.

He leaves the bathroom, leaves Dallas, nothing but silent.

* * *

**A/N: **This was written by request for aerodynamics (/u/1556904/).

* * *


	3. A Splinter in the Sound

**A Splinter in the Sound Series  
by** infamous_last_**words**

**Part Three | A Splinter in the Sound**

**A/N** So I've gotten a lot of requests to finish this. Here you go, I guess.

He's tossing in his bed, tongue running over teeth, when he hears the knock on the window. Taps, more like; a soft kind of breaking, a waterfall of tiny glass particles. He flips over and looks, assuming it's some branches, and sees nothing. There is no tree directly outside that would cause such a noise. Imagination. Something solid in him unexpectedly plummets.

"What are you hoping for?" he asks angrily to the night air. The siren of an approaching police car wails nearby, getting closer and then screaming away in to the shadows. He swears he can hear the kitchen clock ticking. "Why would you hope for that."

Fully dressed, the summer sheets on his bed pick up grime from jeans past their prime of cleanliness. He's rough with the pillow underneath his head, calluses catching on the material. It's hot in his room, even in the darkness. Moon slants in sideways. He's been drinking too much.

Ceiling-stares catch long shadows forming—again, he looks to the window. It is almost like he's waiting for something to happen, anything, after the bar bathroom and the spitting. Saliva still gelatinous in his mouth, caught behind molars. Baring his teeth to the glass panes, he smirks unkindly to himself and closes his eyes. It hurts to swallow. He adjusts his position restlessly.

"More and more like him every day, huh." He's not sure who he hates more, now.

A couple minutes pass. Again the waterfall starts, slowly at first. It builds, but he ignores it as a ruse. Just one of the many mirrors to internal turmoil; no more laughing, no more jokes, less cake and more beer, less cartoons and more shadows. He feels less eloquent than ever, if he ever was. Mostly dodging chicks he would pick up, passing into the corners of buildings and the alleys between them. Hoping, ever hoping…

Dallas pounds on the window. "Hey, asshole!"

Jumping up, Two-Bit balls his hands into fists. "What the fuck?" he hisses, not daring to step any closer to the window. He thinks if he latched it or not, and can't decide which one he would rather it be right now.

"Let me in!" Dallas counters, quieter. He still knocks on the window, a specter glancing over his shoulder with the fervor of paranoia. "Come on, just open up!"

Even in the dark Two-Bit can see how brightly the other's eyes are blazing—not fear, no, but adventure. Misadventure. No doubt there is a bottle of whiskey cradled close to his chest in that leather jacket-covered arm; no doubt the hood has no wallet or cash on him.

He crosses his room, the carpet now unfamiliar underneath his bare feet. He doesn't know what he's doing as the metal of the window lock is on the pad of his thumb, as he slides open a space for Dallas to silently vault through into his room, his territory. Two-Bit's hair rises on end like an electric shock's gone through him; the cop car's siren is back, crawling along further down the street. Still stunned by the side of the window, Two-Bit can see red and blue lights reflect on a neighbor's busted two-door chassis.

A coarse laughter comes from behind him, breathless and excited. "Get the fuck away, Mathews, close the window. You'll give me away."

Biting, "You would like that," he slides the window back into place and slinks back to his bed, refusing to look at the tow-head. His body is alert to the distance between them, though—expected confrontation, polarized either negatively or positively. He cannot figure out if he'd be sucked to the other like gravity or if he's revolted by his very material presence.

Dallas cackles and pulls a bottle out of his jacket—whiskey, just as predicted. "Oh, cool it you pansyass." He's drunk, or high, Two-Bit can't tell. The whirring of the cap being twisted off distracts him. He's watching from the corner of his eyes, spine stiff on the farthest edge of his bed.

Dallas takes a swig, the amber liquid glorious in the moonlight. His hand around the neck of the bottle pale, knuckles bruised or bloodied. He gasps like a fish after finishing, an inch of the bottle's contents down his throat.

"Hey, shut the fuck up would you? Ma might be workin' but my sis is straight down the hall." Two-Bit sounds strong but his hands tremor—there is a large, though fading, welt on the tow-head's neck. Teeth marks and everything.

Has it only been six days?

"Better lock me in here quick," Dallas replies with a sneer that'd make the moon sick. More dangerous than ever, thinner and bony. Taut. He swigs again with skeleton fingers, not taking either eye off Two-Bit. "A woman-Mathews?" He almost purrs, mean eyes shining.

Two-Bit fumes, not able to shake off this buzzing in his head. The siren is closer, slower. "I could throw you back out that window just as easy as I let you in, you sack of skin," he threatens. "You're looking more worse for the wear than my shoe soles."

Dallas spills a bit trying to get up from the floor where he'd stayed since diving in to safety, unsteady on his feet. He regains balance and walks over to Two-Bit, who is still staunchly refusing to meet his gaze.

"If you don't close yer pie hole, you'll be meeting the soles of my shoes, bucko."

Two-Bit sneers. It takes everything in him to not jump up and run out the door, away from the drunk who smelled of Buck Merril's couch, metal shavings, and bad country music. Dallas' skin has a sheen of sweat on it, but he doesn't take off his jacket. Another long drink.

"Well, then." Dallas changes his mind, backing away from Two-Bit to do a lazy lap around the room. "What you been up to, Two-Cents?"

Fully aware the towhead is just biding his time until the coast is clear, Two-Bit chews his cheek and stays silent. He hadn't had a lot tonight, only a couple beers, but it's enough to intensify everything in the small room. Ranch-style houses are hell in the summer.

Across the room, the back of a hand wipes across a full mouth. Some half-healed scrapes dot the thin flesh, cracked from dryness or teeth or stranger's fists—Two-Bit's guess was as good as any. When they finally lock eyes it's like the whole room is dropped into a bowl of ice water.

Slowly, Dallas approaches the window adjacent to Two-Bit's bed and places the bottle, a third drained, onto the sill. Without looking away he takes one leaf of his unzipped jacket and pulls it back, then moves on to the other side. He's wearing a white undershirt, armpits translucent with sweat. The jacket is thrown onto the ground between them like a matador's cape. Two-Bit can't move to stop what's going to happen next, nor does he feel like he can just sit still; somehow, his body freezes with this feeling inside of him. If it was possible to move by sheer mind-will, he'd end up split in two separate places—closer and further.

Choosing his steps carefully, Dallas makes his way to the edge of the bed. Two-Bit has to arch his neck to look up at the hood, painful crick from a bad week's sleep catching a nerve. But still he can't look away—Dallas' hand comes down to his face, fingers ghosting over his profile. They're shaking.

"So… I'm drunk, Mathews."

As if all his latent energy of the past week suddenly released, Two-Bit grabs Dallas' waist in the circle of his arms and uses the clean motion to bring him swiftly down to the mattress, thin body bouncing on its surface from the abrupt throw. Two-Bit's leg swings over the towhead's lap haphazardly, crotches pushed together. Their faces are close, breaths an invisible veil of condensation between them.

"You think that changes anything, shithead? You think just 'cos some lifted whiskey's sliming up your brain that you won't be responsible for something you've obviously premeditated?" All of the sudden, Dallas' features lose their alluring façade. Grey eyes get hard and cold, but Two-Bit's broad hand rings around thin wrists before they can do anything deadly.

"What, your plan not panning out?" he taunts.

Dallas bares sharp teeth. "No."

Hearing something so honest catches Two-Bit off guard. He lets go of Dallas' hands and earns a sharp jab to temple for his troubles. He rolls over on the bed, back against the wall, to avoid its twin. Dallas quickly corners him, holding him horizontal with surprising force.

"What will it take?" he asks, voice lilting into a whisper heard only by the two of them, edges of his mouth turned down with disgust. "Fucking anger and violence every time we fuck?" He pushes Two-Bit to the wall, banging his head. "If I was looking for that, I'd get my old man when he was tipsy by wearing my Ma's summer dress."

Something's off, and by the time Two-Bit can get the stink of alcohol blinked out of his eyes it's too late. Dallas' hand has reached around back and pulled out Buck's six-shooter from his waistband. It clicks into cocked position by Two-Bit's temple, whose limbs fall limply to the bed with terrified compliance.

The towhead's mouth hisses out the words, distorted and ugly-pretty: "What? Finally up, Mathews?" He presses the gun in threateningly, voice rising. "What are you going to do about it, huh?"

Two-Bit turns his head away, gripping the bed sheets. He's not sober enough to stay stoic and stare down the barrel; he wouldn't be able to even if he were sober. "Dal," he tries, voice soft. "What do you want?" Adrenaline makes his heart jump. He swallows and puts his eyes back on the towhead's, continuing just as sedately. "Dal, Dal, hey. Tell me…"

Snarling, "I'll shoot you before I ask you!"

Suddenly it clicks. Two-Bit looks down at the mouth so scab-bitten and moves his own closer to it. The motion is met by the barrel of the gun pushing further into his skin. He looks up and meets grey eyes again; everything changes in an instant. Gently, he brings Dallas' bottom lip between his own, sucking on it, eyes closing soundlessly.

Dallas' tongue moves past his teeth into his mouth, against his own tongue. The gun is still held, but it's as if Dallas has forgotten about it. Two-Bit puts his fingers in the groove of the other's spine, relishing as the drunk turns to putty in his lap as the kiss continues. A string of saliva connects their mouths when they part, finally, lips wet. Some feeling completely different, yet completely the same stirs between Two-Bit's legs as Dallas regards him with a grey gaze.

Dallas nudges the gun to his temple, body language everything opposite; quietly, "Again."

Two-Bit wraps his arm around the towhead and pulls him closer. He kisses his chin right at the tip; his skin between upper lip and nose; the corner of his mouth: he dips his tongue into an ear, and Dallas straightens up impulsively, shivering. When Two-Bit pulls away for a second to switch sides, he realizes eyes are closed complacently despite the strength that shows in a gun-hand.

"Dallas…"

"What?"

He thinks about it, and then lowers the other's body to the mattress in tandem with his own so the barrel can be kept to his temple. "Nevermind," as he connects their mouths once more.

Somehow it's easier to just let this happen than it is to force anything else; even with the threat of a bullet ripping out his brains, Two-Bit relaxes into whatever's happening. A refusal to process seems likely, but he feels it in every nerve of himself when Dallas responds to the slow, shallow dips his hips make against the turgid organ between the other's thighs. It's not like kitten kisses being shared—they have an unexplainable edge. Between he and the hood there still exists a fight; paradoxically to the existence of the gun and what has happened between them before, from free will.

Letting distance of a few inches grow between them, Two-Bit looks down at the towhead. "I only ever wanna fuck you, you know."

Dallas smirks, adjusting his hand around the gun. "How bad, Mathews?"

Deliberately, Two-Bit grinds his lap downward in maddening circles. If he could hear one sound for the rest of his life, it'd be the moan Dallas makes in his ear—anything but deliberate, premeditated, stifled.

He draws away carefully, the barrel smelling of iron and sweat, and begins to reach for the hem of his own shirt as the door to his room flies open. It happens in a second. A man in uniform trains a gun on Dallas, using the door frame as a brace and barrier—only his arms reach into the room; "Fucking drop it!"

Betrayal shows on Dallas' features like dawn. Two-Bit watches it happen as a fly sees the newspaper gunning toward it in those final throes; protecting himself, half out of surprise he jumps away from Dallas, off of the bed, hands held up in front of him as if he were the guilty one. Dallas sees this and in a split second his vulnerability is replaced by steeled anger. His mouth twisted up in half-desperation, half-valor, Dallas remembers what he holds in his hand and moves its mark square between Two-Bit's eyes.

"Are you always this goddamn scared, Mathews?"

He hears the gun shot through waves and waves of air. It's not until Dallas is on the floor, the fuzz's knee in his back and thin wrists handcuffed that Two-Bit realizes there's a hole in the window by his head, and the glass waterfall sound starts without hope of stopping.

Barbara rushes into the room, eyes full of tears and movements erratic. She throws her arms around her brother—"I heard him, I heard him say 'I'll shoot you!' Keith!"—shoving past Dallas, who is escorted from the room like some kind of dangerous jungle animal, eyes burning in the moon light. Two-Bit pushes his sister from him and follows the trail of broken picture frames and vases, of upturned furniture Dallas leaves in his wake. They're outside on the front porch when he catches up.

"He's not… Why are you—"

"Son, I suggest you go back inside if you know what's good for you," the officer replies tersely, wrangling Dallas at the same time as he shoots disgusted looks around the disheveled neighborhood. "This thieving hood here is about two steps down the road further than you. Make this—" Finally having it, he punches Dallas in the stomach, the thin body going limp momentarily, "a window into your future if you don't straighten yourself up."

Dallas wheezes manically, "Yeah, Mathews, two steps!" His voice is hoarse with rage and abuse, arms like wings behind his back, bent and broken, elbows in the air. Past ribs sticking stark again his sweat-soaked shirt, Two-Bit can distinguish the bitterest disappointment, the almost-weeping air and what unrequited sadness it holds, as if feelings were something felt, as if it were a dream; as if this were something to be torn up about, something besides the let-down of not getting sexual gratification.

Barbara appears at his side and shouts to the officer some form of defense, separating the towhead's actions from anything her brother has ever, or will ever, do. She wonders loudly why she called the police in the first place if all they were going to do was abuse them and their situation, and to just hurry up and do their job, get the fucking hood in the slammer already. Two-Bit tells her to shut up but he's not sure if the sound makes it out—his throat's gone dry. As Two-Bit watches Dallas' red eyes home in on him from beside the car, all he can do is suppress the urge to vomit out of fear, the fact they were almost caught dawning on him; maybe it was bigger than sex, maybe it always had been between them. He didn't know there were things besides, and the fact a hood with no home or honors to his name has taught him something like this makes him sick, makes him so incredibly small. His body shakes, as if from withdraws.

As he's pushed into the back seat, Dallas' mouth stretches open to unleash an animalistic snarl, but all Two-Bit can hear through the struggle of limbs enchained is that one pure moan, momentarily thinking how similarly the mouth moves; a splinter in the sound of his silent, wide-eyed headspace.


End file.
